Routers... again!

[Peenyuh]

In the home network. Have a netgear router with a desktop LAN'd in and 5 to 7 laps accessing at various times. I have a wireless linksys that I would like to integrate into the network for the sole purpose of 4 of the laps. If I do this, will the only benefit be increased range of connectivity? Or will it lighten the burden on the netgear? I only have the one modem, will I have to get another line put in? I'm shooting in the dark here, guys. Can I even divide a network in this way?

[obsidian]

Since you're Mexmerican isn't exactly English, let's clarify... The Netgear is also a wireless router, right?

Modem:
You only need one if you intend on having everyone share the same bandwidth. Meaning if 5 people are all downloading, the total connection speed will be divided by 5. You can add an additional line and modem from your ISP, either having 2 WANs or you may be able to bind them together to a single connection, but regardless you'll have to pay twice the price for your Internet. I don't think this is what you want.

"Lightening the Burden":
Having more than one router with the intent on making your router do less work won't make a difference for most day-to-day use. Negotiating packets to different computers is what a router is designed to do. There might be a few instances that this might make a difference for file transfers, but I doubt you'll ever come across one.

Increasing Range:
As a big if... If you are able to set up one of your routers as a wireless access point, you can use it as a second point of connection for your wireless laptops. It depends on the firmware that you have installed on it and whether it has the capacity to function as a wireless access point instead of just a router. You'll have to check the model, and as an alternative solution, you might be able to flash it with DD-WRT or Tomato third-party firmwares which have this feature, assuming that firmware supports your model. Another big if. I *think* the access point will experience reduced throughput.

[Peenyuh]

This is exactly what I wanted to know... though I'm only 90% sure, what with yer accent and all. Looks like I'll just pay for another line. *sigh* I can set the linksys as an access point, but the signal in this house is excellent. Additional bandwidth seems to be what I need. Thank you kind sir.

[+JuggerNaut+]

Hold on a second.

How much speed are you paying for now and with whom? Getting an additional line doesn't sound like the right answer. (I'm trying to save you money here, so don't fucking argue)

[obsidian]

I don't think this is what you want.

Since you didn't exactly describe that you had a problem, I never suggested a solution. From your OP it sounded like you just had a spare router that you didn't know what to do with. I merely answered your questions as if it was just based on a curiosity about networking.

If you're having problems with your Internet bandwidth, that's quite another story. What exactly is the problem you are having?

(Dammit Peenyuh, learn how to post)

[Peenyuh]

I have Comcast. The TV, Internet, Home phone type deal. Saving money isn't the priority. When everyone in the house is doing their thing on the internet, all the comps seem to bog down. Several of the users do IMVU, and two of us do online gaming. Everyone does fb. Also, Vuze is utilized at times. The hardware, on everyone's comp is more than good to use their apps, so, I was just seeing what I would have to do to end the peak slowdowns.

I apologize for my posts. I've never been to school for computers, I'm self educated... which isn't easy... I'm not very bright. I know how to do quite a bit with computers. I've even built a couple of moderate gamers. I just don't know terminology. It prevents me from asking the right questions in the right way.

Thank you guys again. I'm sure adding another line will do the trick. Everything I found online mentions signal strength as a motivation for extra routers.

[obsidian]

I'm just poking you in the ribs about how you're posting. Take it easy on yourself, sombrero.

You might be having problems managing the bandwidth rather than a straight up problem with not enough bandwidth.

People chatting and facebooking has such a little impact on bandwidth, I don't think has anything to do with the problem. Online gaming doesn't require too much bandwidth, but it does require a steady bandwidth, and I think some of your other services might be interfering with it. Set Vuze to download on off-peak hours, I'm sure there's a setting in the program somewhere.

For starters, you might want to monitor your household's Internet traffic and see if you are actually hitting your bandwidth limit. I doubt it. Your router may have built in tools to do this or you can download software to monitor each computer.



In the bottom graph (WAN), if your traffic looks like the first half, you should be fine, but if you are hitting your bandwidth limit (in this case 6Mbps) like in the second half of the graph, you might be running out of bandwidth. Keep in mind that you should do this without any large downloads or anything, just normal chatting, internet, gaming, etc.

Most routers have a feature called QoS (Quality of Service) which helps you manage traffic. You can tell the router your maximum upload and download limits. You can set priority to certain tasks like gaming and internet browsing and set lower priority to other stuff like downloading during peak periods. You can also allocate more bandwidth to a specific computer. This should help you negotiate speeds between different users of the same network.

Regardless, just adding more bandwidth might not be the right solution and you might end up with still slow speeds and paying twice for it. I'm sure other people who are more knowledgeable than I am will be able to add some other tips and things to try before you double up your bill.

[^misantropia^]

Quick and easy test: Start Run ping -t -w 500 google.com [enter]

Let it run for a couple of minutes. Take note of the response times. Normal is between 50 and 100 ms. Are your response times consistently higher? Do they spike? Do you get lots of time-outs?

[Peenyuh]

OOO! This is getting good. I'm going to devote some time to this later in the evening, when everyone's up to their interweb shinanigans. I'll let you know where I'm at mañana. TY

[+JuggerNaut+]

Get one good Linksys router that you can flash with DDWRT (or any other DDWRT compatible router) and learn to apply QOS to the services you've identified.

[AmIdYfReAk]

Is the QOS implementation in DD-WRT fixed?

it was rather lack luster/broken last time i looked :S

[AmIdYfReAk]

i actually rather DD-wrt's UI then tomato, Though, they have the QOS down pat, and MLPPP as well..

[+JuggerNaut+]

tomato's ok, but DDWRT is better. nothing wrong with QOS in DDWRT so not sure what version you had issues with.

[AmIdYfReAk]

V18 V23SP2,

then i moved to tomato for the MLPPP.

[+JuggerNaut+]

WRT54GL and WRT150N no issues with QOS with any of those versions.